8

In the midst of all of that, my baby turned 8!

Stella is an oddball, we know this, so I wasn't so surprised when this was her requested birthday theme ... [insert hysterical laughing emoji]

She built the character from various Lego minifigs and we added the blood and bats etc in Pic Monkey - all under her strict direction.
She handed the invites out at school one morning, a few to kids whose parents I've not met before, and I waited to see how they'd be received. Happily well, by most, with just one little friend being 'unfortunately unable to attend' according to her mother and 'I can't come because I'm not allowed to go to parties were there is evil' according to the little friend herself [insert eye rolling emoji]. Cackle.

It was a much smaller affair than usual. Last year's Pandamonium almost killed us, and in the present circumstances I just couldn't muster the requisite energy for a repeat performance, or even anything close.
With our youngest's just 2 days apart Zahida and I would always plan their parties in consultation - firstly on the date so as not to clash, and then always on ideas and details. We did them very differently, but we both enjoyed party-planning and flexing our creative muscles together, I missed her so much while planning this one.

We did a couple of themed foods ...

Vampire bunny cupcakes - you decide whether those are bloody fang bites or bleeding eyeballs.

And vampire bunny jam sandwiches ... 

And then the cake, which in our history of birthday cakes pulled the biggest stunt on us - the idea was half cutesy bunny / half vampire terror but the intricate fondant face we'd tirelessly built the night before melted off overnight, necessitating husband perform emergency facial reconstruction surgery with the last bit of icing and whatever tools he had to hand just minutes before singing Happy Birthday. I think he did a pretty good job considering.

The beautiful birthday girl plus clean-up crew in the aftermath. She did feel the loss of the huge fiesta we usually pull off, 'I missed that there was no running around in the dark Mum', but had a good time regardless and I hope one day will look back and realise what a tough time it was for us.

Stella is 8 and from here on out it feels like we're officially in the Next Stage. No more smalls in this family. It really, really does happen so fast.

won't ever happen

We found a video clip on an old phone of Frieda, soft-faced and blonde curls, age 6, her voice so different, thicker - pre-tonsillectomy -  'I pinkie swear I'll never twerk.'

Stella, regularly, 'I'll never leave home, I'll live with you until I die Mummy. Or until you die, whichever happens first.' Her eyes become solemn.
She thinks a lot about death this one.

Overheard today: 'I will never, ever drink coffee.'

We've thought for months: 'Trump will never become president.'

the week that was

Big, crazy week of work work work, no childcare outside of school hours, total disintegration of house and home, complete neglect of pets and plants and laundry and really anything outside of the work and the most pressing of family functions.
(Apparently we must eat and have vaguely clean laundry and conversation every day - crazy innit?)

My poor children. Naturally with the Work comes the Guilt.

It's interesting how I'll happily tell my kids to bugger off so I can read my book, or have a shower, or cook a meal - I have no real problem with doing that (if they're happy and fed etc of course) because it's looking after me - which I think is good behaviour to model - or looking after the family - which is part of my job as nurturer. But I hate having to tell them I need space to work.
Then I'm looking after other people, and that feels like a betrayal.

It could not have been a better week to stumble across this online ...

.... how totally and terrifyingly true is this?

This week I have been reminded again how immensely lucky I am that this is not our permanent reality.
I work in these fits and starts, I work from home - and in some ways I think the broken rhythm of my work days might make it harder on the kids to settle into a routine, and sometimes I think it might be easier of I was gone - away in an office - rather than here and so very distracted.
But at least if I'm here I can keep contextualising for them what's happening - they can see I'm working, they hear me on the phone (while I glare at them to shut it), Frieda reads my emails over my shoulder and asks me to explain a movement order - and because I'm freelance there's an end, a point in the future in which I'll stop, push away from my desk and my phone won't ping every 5 minutes.

But for now .... 3 days in Joburg next week, new au pair starting 1 December ... 4/5 left to go!

1/5

It was never going to be a particularly easy day.

Husband had to leave for Joburg at 5am, and we'd both only be home after 8 tonight - him from up there, me from my first of 5: 5 events in 4 months.

Luckily (so, so luckily), Granny was on hand to help out - collect girls from respective schools, feed them, take them to swimming, feed them again, have them sleepover and then get them up for school tomorrow.
Last night we packed multiple outfits, snacks, the bizarre assortment of paraphernalia two little girls require to function over 24h.

We both worked late, we both struggled to fall asleep. But only one of us woke at 1am to a daughter with a sore stomach, at 3am to two dogs with full bladders, at 4am to a daughter (the same one) with sick in her hair, at 4:30am to fly across the country (okay that one was him) and again at 7 to a daughter (still the same one) with more sick in her hair.

What is that word, I pondered to myself this morning, for that thing where you have a massive, important work commitment and you find yourself scrubbing sick off a carpet? Oh right, I remember: motherhood.

And what is the word, for when you have to drop your grey and droopy child off at someone else's house because you have to go to work? Oh ja, guilt.

But in her words: 'Mum, if I can't be sick with you or Dad then Granny is the next best person in the whole world.'
Rare praise.

Poor lamb.
Apparently however, according to the text I got from Mum as my book launch babbled away successfully in the background, she rallied enough to eat some chocolate mousse before bed.

1 down. 4 to go. Oh and that thing called Christmas slap-bang in the middle. And still no au pair person.

Thank goodness I love my job!

paddling out

Last weekend Frieda broke out her paddle-ski for the first time this season. A gift from a dear friend, her board took him to the SA championships many years ago, now it has retired to the lake, to be paddled around by small children hoping to spy coot chicks and other interesting water creatures.

I carried it down to the water for her and she hopped aboard - no life-jacket required this year - and confidently stroked out into the late afternoon sun.

After a while Stella asked if she could have a go - a first time request.

Firmly strapped into her life jacket (although she is becoming a very capable swimmer), she got her balance and managed to wield the heavy and ungainly paddle with no small measure of skill.
She very quickly set out into the middle of the lake - all on her own.

We started untying the pedalo. Calmly cooing encouragement to her as we hurriedly readied ourselves to launch and follow.

On Friday I had my 3rd upcoming event confirmed. That's 3 contracts I've currently got going.
There are another 2 waiting in the wings to be imminently secured.

Our completely amazing and reliable nanny/au pair quit at the beginning of the month. (She was offered a chance to manage a small office - orders, book-keeping etc - a position she's totally ready and capable for - I'm so happy for her. Sob.)

I'm taking all the work.

I'm blithely and confidently paddling out into the middle of the lake - trusting my skill, hoping my balance will hold, hoping the paddle doesn't become too heavy for my arms.

By the time we caught up with Stella she looked very small indeed, drifting far off shore - she was sitting still, one hand trailing in the water, seemingly enjoying the sunset and the water lapping gently around her.
It was only as we drew alongside and she turned to us that we saw the big heavy tears rolling down her cheeks, and realised her stillness concealed pure trembling fear.
Out of her depth and terrified.

Let's hope no one finds me in a similar state in a couple of weeks time.

the grit

A friend told me my blog has been looking a little squeaky-clean of late. Enviable family holidays away, gorgeous sunny birthday parties in the middle of winter, daughters who read all day and stay out of my hair, birthday lunches with lovely ladies ... yeah, it's been a wonderful few months ... but we all know life ain't like that all the time right?

I just don't really like to moan, don't like to come into this space with the blaah. Not that I haven't in the past, but the thing is, what do I want a record of?
The warm 'n fuzzy moments of my life - the big events, the everyday love, the heart-stopping moments of ordinary awe and immense gratitude?

Or, do I want to remember how in the last few weeks I've also ...
... had two jobs canceled (turns out they couldn't afford the full ass) and all the related financial stresses
.... been back and forth to the vet 5 times with my beloved Lego. She's had a big skin sarcoma biopsied, then removed, then re-stiched, then re-bandaged and re-medicated. Her little brother was responsible for the second round of stitches and bandages. Resulting eventually in this:

... managed The Cone: rearranged furniture, placated a seriously unhappy pup, had my shins smashed into over and over, kept the food bowl filled just so so he could use it and any number of times been called on to extricate him from some cone/bush/chair jam, once involving dog shit
... tackled our first case of head-lice in the family (not bad for 8 years of parenting huh?), which involved copious research, laundry, tumble-drying EVERYTHING, quarantining 2 black bags of soft toys, spray, comb, shampoo, check and repeat. Over and over and over and over and over.
... managed my annual seasonal asthma issues, lots of wheezing and discomfort and fretting at 1am about dying of emphysema until I get myself to the doc and hand over a lot of money in exchange for the welcome news that it's really not that bad, and the right (expensive) meds to manage it. Boring.

So ja, I could've blogged about all that for some perspective right? Life is not all hoorahs and polished apples.
But we know that, you know that, and I know that despite there being some challenges and tedious days of soul-destroying adulthood, my life is pretty damn fine.

It's more than fine, it's mine - and it's the best life I could be living right now.

ash wednesday

We woke this morning to the Great Greyness. A world of smoke and ash, bad smells and scratchy eyeballs.
Schools were closed due to excessive smoke or fire risk, Stella had a temperature, we were all tired.

It was an apt choice of reading material Stella pulled from the bookcase, my ancient childhood copy of The Great Blueness.
And reading it inspired us to try a colour 'speriment I've had bookmarked for a while.

Drops of food colouring in a bowl of milk, add a couple of drips of washing up liquid and watch the colours swirl.

Later the smoke cleared and Frieda and I took the dogs for a much needed walk. The air was fresh, the clouds over the mountain mixing with the last wisps of smoke.
The world felt quiet and new.

25 things about right now.

1. I spend all my days logged into the Other Google Account.
2. The one with The Work and The Questions and The People who need me all the time.
3. My life could not be more different to this time last year.
4. As the conference I'm working on draws near (9-13 Feb), I'm feeling The Thrill. It's a good feeling.
5. I'm working with such a diverse group of people.
6. And seriously have to watch my foul potty mouth - probably not a bad thing ...
7. Also, I was in a meeting this week with 5 other people who were all 5 - 10 years younger than me.
8. Just, wow.
9. RETRACTED
10. Unrelated: if I want to send a Glitter Bomb I need only sweep my study (aka the Art Room) floor.

11. A Glitter & Dog Hair Bomb that is.
12. Seriously, our dogs have the worst life.

13. And on the subject of Lego, there's been a bit of building around here - it's a great work distraction.

(I only noticed the cat/eye thing when I downloaded this.)

14. LEGO building is also fun by lamplight, during load-shedding, which is back.

15. I'm extremely lucky to have a LEGO Fairy Godmother. She's been keeping us in steady supply.
16. Oh wait, there's more LEGO...
17. Somebody has started meticulously planning her birthday party in March.

18. These are all the items which will appear on her cake .... apparently.
19. Not pictured: a fluffy leopard (which I said would have to stand alongside because icing) and a ninja (because invisible).
20. I sense I'm going to have to relinquish control over this one. And that's okay.
21. There's nothing wrong with a LEGO-Leopard-Dinosaur-Ninja 5th Birthday Party at all. We welcome diversity in this house.
22. My brother and sister-in-law are moving into their new house (much closer to us - yay!) RIGHT NOW. We're standing by with supper ...
23. My other brother is getting married NEXT MONTH!
24. Family for the win.
25. Now what the hell am I going to wear for 5 days of formal conferencing??

oops ...

We all know it's just plain mean to laugh at someone else's woes but ... sometimes they're just really funny.

Remember this?

Now check out this.

Firstly, this is not a residential building - that wouldn't really be funny at all - but the funny part was that I nearly saw this happening.
Earlier in the day I drove past to see a man with a chainsaw going at the base, while two guys hang on to ropes tied to the still-standing tree. Now palm trees are light, but not that light and as I whipped passed I noticed the angle of the tree/house/ropes and thought: 'Uh oh.'

Later that day we stopped to take this pic.

This next one isn't my picture, but that is the mouth of our lake, where it runs into the sea. The water levels for the whole estuary are controlled by opening and closing the mouth, and with big rain predicted for later this week the Council decided to open it ...

Again, as we say in SA, 'Ag shame.'

list of 5: 5 things I'm really good at that no one will pay me for

1. Finding ridiculously small things in ludicrous places.
Two nights ago Husband, up a ladder, dropped a tiny screw into the rose bush. In the dark.
I found it within a minute.

2. Remembering the most inane detail about completely arbitrary and inconsequential crap.
A ridiculous example is buried deep in this post.
(Which, can I just say, I knew exactly where to find because I remembered  the year I originally posted it ... it's a gift right?)

3. Sticking my foot in my mouth.
Like this afternoon when I said (to a group of people I'd never met before) something about someone else I'd met clearly being a massive Christian and started loudly imitating an alarm siren going off (with hand gestures and everything), while the friend I was with used her baby as a shield to frantically gesture to me to SHUT UP THEY ARE ALL MASSIVE CHRISTIANS.
Ack.

4. Apparently, ruining people's fun.

As in, 'Get out of the ball pit NOW, we're going home.'
(Because Mummy just embarrassed herself socially.)

5. Taking dogs to the vet.
FIVE trips last month and tomorrow I take one back to get his stitches removed and the other to a canine orthopod to get checked out for possible leg surgery.

I'm sure this all adds up to a good resume for something right? Anyone?

sloppy jo

Yesterday I unexpectedly had to drive the girls to school (husband usually does it).

I put on some new, I think stylish, track pants, a long-sleeve tee. I washed and moisturised my face. I thought I combed my hair, and jumped into the car.

On the way there we realised Frieda hadn't completed her reading assignment for the day - she was beside herself and not satisfied with my writing a note to her teacher, wanted me to come and explain the situation in person.
Okay fine.

I unloaded Stella at Frieda's school and we went in search of Mrs van der Merwe, to discover all the teachers were in assembly.
So I hung out at the back for a while, chatting to other mums and catching up a bit, until bored of waiting I went to the achingly sweet school secretary, explained the situation, left the partially completed reading book and note with her.
In her office I bumped into some other parents, had a couple of other quick chats ...

Then on to Stella's school where, as soon as I walked in, her teacher and another mum said: 'Oh, still in your pyjamas are you?'
What? Do I look like I'm in my pyjamas??

'Kind of,' says the teacher, 'or maybe it's just the wild hair.'

Fuck.

why can't we all just get along?

In the light of the atrocities happening in Uganda, and the recent distressing news from Arizona, picking up this in the waiting room at my GP's office was a real shocker.

What the actual fuck fuckitty fuck?

I calmly read it, photographed it, and folded it up under my arm when I went in to see the doctor. I asked her about it before we went any further with the consultation, it being a bit of a deal-breaker in the continuance of our until now valued doctor-patient relationship.
Thankfully she was as horrified as I, and clearly from her reaction already suspected which staff member was responsible for disseminating this filth.
Really left me with a horrid taste in my mouth (and not just from the antibiotics either).

On Monday I took the girls out for fish and chips and were seated behind a table of men, all speaking Afrikaans.
The girls don't provide much in the way of stimulating conversation while shoveling hot chips, so naturally I eavesdropped.
Turns out this bunch of friends were counselling one of their group as he prepared to come out to his family.

It was a wonderful conversation to listen in on. The young guy's angst was real, and that was sad, but his friends were amazing, offering such insightful and affectionate advice - telling bits of their own coming out stories and really working to help him overcome his fears.
There was some joking too, and teasing about the kind of questions he needed to prepare himself for:
'Who's the man and who's the wife?'
'When did you know?'
'Have you ever slept with a woman?'
The group all laughed wryly at these, and made comments on how straight people just don't get it do they?

We're all so different, negotiating our way through this crazy world. But we're all so similar too, we all just want to be happy, and accepted. Even poor old 'Janet' in the article above.
And we all need friends to help navigate our way along this journey.

I left feeling so happy that this guy had such good friends, whatever the reaction from his family will be, and saddened that 'Janet' has clearly distanced herself from hers, and maybe her chance to really be happy.

27 June 2008

Frieda was just one. She and I had spent the afternoon at a friend's. I remember I'd had more than one gin and tonic. It was Friday and it felt that way.

We got home a little late for starting supper etc, and swooped straight through the house to the kitchen. I put Frieda in her high chair and started scrabbling for something to feed her.

The alarm had been on when we'd arrived, I'd disarmed it before we entered. The study door was closed but that didn't strike me as odd, we often closed it so Frieda wouldn't toddle in there unsupervised.

It was only when I tried to open the back door, and couldn't, that I realised the broom cupboard which stood just outside it was on its side. Then I saw all the broken glass and went cold.
Where they still here?

I grabbed Frieda and my phone and walked straight out of the house again. Stood in the bitter wind phoning my husband and the security company. I wrapped her close in my big jersey, my heart thudding through us both.

Turns out the burglar was long gone. He'd smashed the solid pane of the study window (having realised that the alarm worked with contact points on all the opening windows and doors), closed the door to the study and helped himself to everything in there - 2 laptops, a tablet, a bike jacket, a mobile phone, some cash etc.

A bloody fingerprint stained the strip plug he'd unplugged my laptop from.
I am so grateful I'd copied the photos of Frieda's 1st birthday to a flash drive to share with a friend.
He left a can of mace spray behind.
I'm so grateful we came home when we did.

He left some other fingerprints too. And the reason why I tell this story now is that tomorrow I go to court to bear witness against him. 5 years and another dozen charges later they've got him, and although I don't really see the worth of my testimony - I can't add anything to the original police report, I never saw him - I'll do what I can to help find him guilty.

We were 'lucky' to have only been burgled once in all the years we lived in Observatory. (Actually we were broken into twice but the other time the perp only got into our garden shed and took a dump - I was away working on a shoot so I guess that time just I was lucky!)

But I don't feel particularly lucky now as I have to leave home in the dark and rain tomorrow to spend the morning on a cold, hard bench in the unsavoury environment of the Cape High Court.
But Justice must be served right?

winter

There's a gecko on the outside of the sliding door, half a mm to the right and he'd be in danger of being squished, but he's been hanging on there for days.
Dude's too cold to move.

Each time I open or close the door I hold my breath and watch him, willing him to stay put. I open that door more than one would think in this weather, as various pets decide they need to be out and then, jesus christ no, back in.
All day I open and close the door for temperamental cats with iffy bladders just as all night I lift and drop the edge of the duvet for them to come in and out.

You know it's winter and you're a sucker when you prise yourself away from the warm back of your husband to make space for a cold and elderly ginger cat to wedge herself between you. The warmest place in the house. There's 2 of them in our bed these nights.

The draft from the ill-fitting edge of that sliding door cuts through the room like a knife. I stand sofa cushions upright in front of the gap and wedge them there with a dining room chair.
I've masking taped the keyholes of the west-facing doors.

Today I watched coots tumble-weed down the lake in the face of a bitter gale force wind. The water has white-capped waves which lap up the lawn. Our jetty has detached and undulates in the foam, whole palm branches and swathes of litter caught up against it.

Winter was a long time coming this year but she's here now. Oh yes she is.

home security

Of all the ways we're ripped off as South African middle-class citizens - insurance, bank charges and the like - home security is waaaay up there.

Private security companies take full advantage of the horrendous state of crime in our country and totally coin it. They hardly need to spend anything on marketing either, one only has to read the papers or go to a dinner party with friends to get enough motivation to spend heaps of cash on beams and bars and electric fencing.

My brother-in-law's house was recently burgled in the middle of the day. Their bars and security gates and Doberman posed no hindrance to the determined thieves, and without a house alarm to betray their presence the bastards clearly spent a long time picking and choosing their loot (the doggie was completely unscathed and untraumatised by the way, she probably welcomed the company and no doubt got a big juicy bone too!).

My mother-in-law, understandably rattled by her eldest son's loss, turned to her religion to make sense of it all, saying that it was only due to God's mercy that he and his wife weren't at home at the time. I don't usually credit that fictional being with having a hand in these things but I have to say if I did, in this case I'd say god was with the burglars, they should be on their knees in gratitude that my brother-in-law, a big angry man who carries a weapon, didn't come home to find them there.

Anyway the result is that even that big angry pistol-packing man is freaked out, and looking to improve his home security. Quotes he's currently receiving to install a home alarm system are in some cases in excess of R40 000.00. Forty thousand rand to sleep better at night. What the actual fuck?

Which brings me, finally, to the inspiration for this post. This crude sign I photographed outside a house this morning.

A desperate, innovative, much more affordable and extremely indicative of how we're all feeling, approach to the constant threat to our possessions and well-being.
How long until the unlucky testicles of those who don't heed this sign (or can't read) are displayed along this wall as a real warning ... ?

facing the year

I discovered yesterday, to my horror, that Husband had switched off the beer fridge.

The last few bottles moved to the kitchen, and the camping fridge which has been stocked and running since early Dec stood, gaping open and humming no more, alone in a corner of the art room.

And while probably good for my figure, the sight of it was bad for my soul.

Summer holidays are over y'all.

I've heard sadder stories too, much sadder.

I've a friend whose husband is facing a massive, stressful project this year. She knows it'll absorb long hours and weekends and school holidays, they've had a lovely holiday the last few weeks but now, in a sense she feels that she and the kids are waving goodbye to him for the year.

Another friend feels the same. Just as they've had this wonderful reminder of why they started a family, of how good the 4 of them are together, she looks ahead and dreads the coming chaos of their working days - back to ships passing in the night she said.

It's no original thought, it's so much the modern dilemma - why do we work, what do we work for, how can this be the right way to do things? Oh, you hear the stories of the families who go it alone, the couples who work together to build a shared and companionable dream. But this can't be everyone's reality, most work for the man.
And the man only gives us a few weeks reprieve.

My hope is we can take the peace of this summer, the fun and the laughter, with us for as long as possible into the year. That we can reclaim it on weekends and the still long summer evenings we'll have for many months.
My hope is we can keep some beer cold in our everyday working fridge too.

turns out there doesn't always need to be smoke

I revealed the spoiler to this story on facebook and twitter, but I kind of couldn't help myself.

I'd been smelling smoke for at least an hour. First, from the water where I was fooling about with the girls and a borrowed windsurfer board.

'I'm sure I smell burning.' I called to husband, standing on the lawn. We both scanned the mountains and he climbed the external staircase to get a better vantage.

Later I smelt it again, and again looked around for that telltale yellowish stain in the sky. The Cape is full of fire this time of year.

After a bit I overheard Frieda talking to someone coming past on the water, she does this quite often and I felt momentarily annoyed to hear her say 'What?' - we've been working hard on the preferable 'Excuse me?', or her inexplicable favourite, 'Could you repeat that?'.

But then she was calling me in alarm, her tone much more serious and her words much more worrying: 'Mum, that lady says our jetty's on fire. And it is!'

And it was. Our semi-collapsing jetty, just a simple thing constructed from some ex-railway timbers, was ON FIRE.

I called to husband in the garage and briefly enjoyed his look of utter incomprehension before grabbing a big cooking pot and bolting down to the water. A few good soakings, quite a few I might add, and it was out. The day saved and the integrity of the poor deck even more compromised than before.

'Where there's smoke there's fire' is a phrase often used to explain a situation, to lend credibility to a suspicion or prove it not to be unfounded. In this case there was a fire, for a long time with no smoke, and any suspicions we may have as to its source are pure speculation.

Wind-borne cigarette butt? Careless passing smoking canoeist? And the more likely, but still weird, theory that a bit of glass, embedded in the wood, baked in the sun and sparked a flame?

Weird. Weird. Weird. And thank goodness we were home.

the fat of the land

When we moved here we had visions of a healthier lifestyle. The water, the space, the proximity to the beach and the mountains, the great outdoors.

Turns out there's also the marvelous patio, the sitting, and looking at the view. The many drinks on that patio, the indulgent braai's and plentiful snacks - for who feels like cooking indoors when you can fill yourself with chips and dips and ... beer? The indulgent meals with friends.

Turns out there's also back fat, and an ever-burgeoning beer baby.

It's the corniest of the corn to speak of these things as the new year approaches, but something's got to be done. And 2013 seems like the time in which this must happen.
I'll not breathe the words 'new year's resolution', but I am resolved not to see this year out in the same tight pants I'll be wearing going into it.

Two and half years to go 'til 40 ... tick, tick, tick ...

a tally ...

... of my recent injuries:

On Friday I got kicked in the face. By accident naturally, during a wild pre-bedtime game of, um ... Kick Mum in the Face as far as I can make out.

Lesson learnt: those little heels are hard and also, never get in a bar fight. My face hurts.

On Saturday I stubbed my toe against the edge of the exhaust pipe for Husband’s ‘project bike’ which was on the floor of the study because, um ... that’s where it seems to live now? I lifted a big flap of skin and may or may not have said bad words in front of my children.

Lesson learnt: buy house with garage, make Husband live in it (garage) and also, fuck.

On Sunday I moved the dog’s bed (made of a repurposed 4x4 tyre) and managed to drop it on my foot. I think I crushed one or more small bones. I may have said some more bad words.

Lesson learnt: get a chihuahua.

And also, feet are over-rated.

atheism with pictures? [updated]

Last week a friend was visiting and I overheard Frieda asking her in the next room: 'Who's God?'

My friend nervously called out, 'Is this a real question?'
'Yup.' I answered.
'Um ... would you like me to answer it?'
'Yup.' I sniggered.
Then, although I was deeply curious, I busied myself with Stella, leaving my friend to answer without the added discomfort of my listening in.

So yes, this is the first time my 4 and a half yr old has asked this question.

And here I've been preparing myself for some other Big Talks. Like how exactly the Daddy's sperm gets into the Mummy's egg (she's got the drift of that part and what happens from there, in fact live births are a regular occurrence in her school playground apparently).
Or the most intimidating talk of them all - why we shouldn't blindly trust strangers. Sadly for my open and friendly little girl this one needs to happen real soon.

But ja, the god question - I wasn't quite ready for that one. I recently realised that I've learnt more about myself during the last 4 and a bit years of parenting than in all the years prior to that. And I'm not talking about the actual parenting lessons, just the fact that when living with two little mirrors one is forced to examine one's own motives, opinions, actions etc that much more closely.
Parenting has brought out the best (empathy, pathos, generosity) and the worst (bias, selfishness, intolerance) in me, and now it's forcing me to form an actual position on the Big Stuff too.

Our plan has always been to allow our children to find their own religious belief when they're ready to. But one can only do that from an informed position and obviously they're going to want to know what their parents believe as a starting point. Has anyone brought out The God Delusion as a picture book yet?

Also, I'm glad Frieda first asked that question of a family friend, in our house. I'm pleased that the question wasn't asked in a less sympathetic and secure environment. I feel badly that it so easily could have been, that's not really fair on her.

So here I go, girding my loins to have a Chat, to check if the answer she received satisfied her curiosity, if she has any more questions. For now.

Wow this parenting malarkey just gets more and more interesting doesn't it?

Update: after writing this post I bit the bullet and one afternoon, lounging on my bed with Frieda, I asked her what my friend's answer had been and whether she was satisfied with the answer.
It seems my friend had equated God with that little voice you hear in your head when you know you're doing something wrong. Not a bad answer for now.
I told Frieda that some people called that little voice God, others called it your conscious etc.
Frieda looked at me, leaned over and tugged on my hair. Hard.
'Ow' I shouted, 'what was that for?!'
'There it is,' she answered, 'that little voice.'